Pepper and Olives. On Countersurveillance
Leander Schwazer and Artists + Allies x Hebron (AAH)

Opening February 28th, 7PM

It seems no longer possible to escape supervision, so much so that it is the surveilled themselves who create surveillance, promoting a veritable culture of it. While surveillance is also fuelled by the dissemination of ever cheaper cameras to individuals, making their way into people’s homes and everyday lives, mass surveillance has now become so much a part of contemporary society that individuals might be said to act under it and remain enmeshed within it, thereby sacrificing some of their civil rights.

The exhibition at Ar/Ge Kunst Pepper and Olives. On Countersurveillance 
traces some of artist Leander Schwazer’s and Artists + Allies x Hebron’s (AAH) reflections on the theme of counter-surveillance and the overturning of axioms that separate the observer from the observed.

The artist Leander Schwazer (1982, Vipiteno) narrates video surveillance from an iconographic and identity perspective, searching the unconscious for the origin of surveillance culture. He inserts images of video-traps (wolves and other animals) placed inside trapdoors and cages, emphasising their spectral and hallucinatory qualities. The second chapter of this project by Leander Schwazer will be on view with an opening on March 1, at 11 a.m., at Geir Street 65, 39049 Meadows of Vizze, next to the artist's studio, where a collection of surveillance images will be presented.

Artists + Allies x Hebron (AAH), on the other hand, propose a counter-surveillance strategy that uses its own technology to subvert it. AAH has installed surveillance cameras looking over Palestinian-owned olive groves, the oldest endemic species in Palestine. This is a large collaborative project involving contributions by Issa Amro, Adam Broomberg, Batuhan Keskiner, Lena Holzer, Christian Nolle, Gabriel Angot, Rafael Gonzalez, Natasha Garbawi, Lina Aastrup, Miki Kratzman, Guy de Lancey, Caterina Salva, Ido Nahari, Reem Aziz Jarbou, Mariia Vydrenko, Mila Broomberg, Daniel Broomberg, Theodor Ringborg, Bonniers Konsthall team, Claartje van Dijk and the Foam team, Laura Bagnoli and SiFest, and Einat Weizman.